Torture Evidence Inadmissable in UK

The frightening thing about this decision reported in The Guardian is that the case had to be considered at all. After all, we still look to the U.K. as the source of our common law traditions.

Evidence that may have been obtained by torture cannot be used against terror suspects in British courts, the House of Lords ruled today.

A panel of seven Law Lords voted unanimously to allow an appeal by eight detainees who are being held without charge on suspicion of being involved in terrorism, against a controversial Court of Appeal judgment passed in August 2004.

The appeal court voted last year that if evidence was obtained under torture by agents of another country with no involvement by the UK, it was usable and there was no obligation by the government to inquire about its origins.